Page 8 of Fatal By Design
His confusion was warranted.Nodidn’t make sense at all. She’d only wanted him to stop speaking. The idea of discussing Philip made her tremble, if only because she didn’t want to face Hugh’s wrath. He’d be furious. He’d be disappointed in her for pretending.
“I just don’t wish to speak of it right now,” she rushed to say, avoiding his gaze. “I’m not ready.”
Hugh stepped back, to the desk, and nodded. “Of course. Forgive me.”
Fresh guilt seared her. He’d done nothing wrong. But she needed to redirect the conversation. “What more would you like to know about the incident on the road?”
He cleared his throat and then, after a moment’s thought, asked, “You did not see the man’s face?”
“I’m afraid not, the vision was limited—it was like I was standing at the door, peering into the coach myself.”
Sometimes, the scope of her visions frustrated her. There was never any telling what she would see, or how thoroughly she would see it. She could close herself off to them, too, pushing out the energy an object might transfer to her. And then other times, they caught her unaware.
She rubbed her temple. “If I were to touch something of the driver’s, perhaps I could see the face of the person who shot him.”
Hugh shook his head. “The cellar is being guarded by two footmen, and I can’t imagine what excuse we could give for you to view the body.”
She’d thought of that too. “I wish I could direct the visions. I wish I could tell you more.”
Hugh shifted his position so that he faced her fully. “What you’ve provided is already leaps and bounds ahead of where we’d be without you. The mention of a ring gives us at least a motive for the attack.”
He was right, of course, though it was a piece of information they could not share with the others, or the magistrate whenever he arrived. Nor did Audrey have any idea which ring it could be.
“Millie continued to wear her wedding band,” she said, recalling the few visits she’d had with her sister since Lord Redding passed. “But I’m afraid no other jewelry of hers stood out to me.”
Hugh crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the writing desk. “Take me through it. Where was the driver?”
“In the box, still seated, slumped over.”
“And his weapon?”
Audrey pinned her lower lip. “I don’t know. Carrigan or Travers, the footman who was with us, might recall. But the door was left open, as I told Lord Westbrook, and the steps were down.”
Hugh turned his attention toward the shelves of books to the left, his jaw tensing as he contemplated. “Highwaymen generally demand jewels and money, but it sounds as if this man—or men, if he was not acting alone—had an interest in a specific ring.”
“He stopped Millie’s coach, believing she had it with her?”
“If that is so, he knew where she would be traveling. He knew where and when to waylay her,” Hugh replied.
On a road, far from her own home. “We need to know her planned destination,” Audrey said, impatience rising. She could not sit idly and wait for the magistrate to arrive, or for Hugh to question Millie’s staff. “I will go with you to Reddingate. The housekeeper might be more amenable to allowing us entry if I am with you, and there may be something there I can hold or touch that could tell us more.”
Audrey expected an argument, and she received one.
“You are in mourning,” Hugh pointed out.
“She is my sister. I’ll care about mourning rules after we’ve found her.”
The slow stretch of his lips happened in time with the thumping of her heart. Not very long ago, he would have grated out a complaint about her disregard for the rules. Now, he merely appeared amused.
“I know better than to try to stop you,” he said with a shake of his head.
“Good. Greer and I are ready to leave when you are.”
ChapterFour
Birds trilled within the branches of the trees lining the road. A soft breeze rustled the leaves, thick and vibrantly green now that August had come. In the narrow field running between the road and a stretch of forest, the incessant humming of beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, and flies were oddly peaceful sounds for a place where a murder and kidnapping had occurred just hours before.
Hugh paced the spot on the dusty road where Lady Redding’s coach had been found. The packed dirt showed the evidence of disturbance—wheel grooves and horseshoe impressions, scuff marks, a single boot print, well preserved. But too many conveyances had since come and gone, and Hugh could not definitively say in which direction Lady Redding’s abductor had driven after taking her and her maid from the coach.
